Local theatre producer and director, Emma Ruse, is behind four shows on the Fringe this year.
Funding is a big part of all theatre productions – but it is particularly brought to the fore when we hear that some of Emma’s shows have been rehearsing in Glasgow since it is cheaper to travel there by train than it is to secure rehearsal space in the capital. This is one of the hidden costs to staging a Fringe production, although we have heard of others rehearsing in London for similar reasons.
Although Emma wanted to be an actor when she was younger, she feels that becoming a producer has been the most accessible route into theatre. After studying at Edinburgh College from 2015 she has never left Edinburgh and now lives in Musselburgh.
After graduation she found that she was more curious about what goes on behind the scenes “and in making things happen for people with that sort of oversight rather than being the person on stage delivering the performance”. So she left acting behind completely – although joked that she may find herself doing am-dram in 20 years time in a production of Les Mis. But she does not envy actors the haphazard existence involving auditions often organised at the drop of a hat.
She is quite modest about her role saying it is “in many ways a glorified project manager and in many ways so much more than that. It is basically everything that you don’t see. So, it’s all the scheduling, it’s the fundraising, it’s the bringing people together, finding the right jigsaw pieces to make the creative magic happen.”
Fundraising
In June a fundraiser performance at Leith Arches included 15 -minute excerpts from all four shows. Mary: A Gig Theatre Show had a short run at the Traverse last December with its all female cast which includes the writer, Rona Johnston, who are mainly Queen Margaret University (QMU) graduates. Mary is the only one of the four productions which is self-funded along with a bit of support from QMU’s Santander Fund.
The others are helped by a mix of crowdfunding and some backing from Creative Scotland’s Open Fund. On the thorny issue of the Creative Scotland (CS) Open Fund, Emma is diplomatic, saying: “I think it’s really challenging. It’s public money, so there needs to be a due diligence done to make sure public money is being used in the appropriate way. And I think Creative Scotland have a really hard job because there is a lot of great art, and not enough funding for the arts. So I think it’s almost impossible for them to be able to win.”
But the Leith Arches fundraiser was a good opportunity to see all four productions side by side. Emma said: “It was really magical actually. When you work on everything so separately, it is brilliant to bring it together and the audience were very warm and very excited about it.”
Emma was also pleased that Jumper Bumps received funding from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society’s Keep it Fringe fund, and that in relation to r/Conspiracy Creative Scotland stepped up “with a bit of funding”. Homo (Sapien) is written by an Irish writer and the show premiered in Dublin in May with a bit of funding from the CS Open Fund.
Emma was notably included on the 2024 30under30 list compiled by The Young Women’s Movement. Part of the reason for her recognition is that the East Lothian producer spent eight years as a member of the National Youth Arts Advisory Group for Scotland – advising on cultural strategy and supporting the way that youth arts funding was distributed. The Young Women’s Movement seeks to “celebrate young women, girls and non-binary people in Scotland who are making changes in their lives, communities and wider society”.
The day job involves running Emma Ruse Productions and also Framework Theatre Company which she set up with a few friends providing bespoke support to emerging Scottish theatre makers. Emma credits Framework as being the start to her career. Although she prefers working on stories told through a feminist or queer lens and anything which supports those considered underrepresented, her work also involves directing some work and also producing plays written by others.
Being a local
Emma agrees that being able to produce four shows locally is a great opportunity, but asked whether the Fringe is a truly great launching pad for the work she considers her reply carefully. She said: “I think you have to be so strategic. I think a lot of what I see is people not thinking strategically about what sort of work they’re bringing, and expecting all sorts of work to be able to achieve the same things at the festival. So as much as I do have four shows, and that might feel like a lot, but they’re four shows that I feel really strongly have a space and have an audience at the Edinburgh festival. So I think you have to be strategic with what you’re bringing and realistic with your expectations. I am not expecting any of these shows to be Fleabag.
“I think they’re all brilliant. I think they have the potential to do that sort of thing. But I think a lot of people go into Fringe with these really high expectations based off Fleabag, based off Baby Reindeer. And it’s just so unlikely with the wealth of work that is happening that yours will be the one in every five years that gets picked up that way.
“So I think for us what’s really useful is it’s a chance for our work to be seen. It’s a chance to do a long run, which is practically unheard of in Scottish theatre unless you’re in one of the big venues, and it’s a chance to learn your craft that way as well. You learn so much from doing a show 25 times that you will never learn when you do it for three nights and then that’s the end. So I think in these ways it’s a really useful platform.”
And her advice on how to get through the Fringe? Emma said: “My top tip is that you cannot do everything. You cannot see everything no matter how much you might want to and you cannot talk to everyone you want to meet. At some point you have to say that is it for today, that’s all I can do. It’s a marathon not a sprint.”
The shows
Her thoughts on the four shows are that they are all “a bit different” but held together by the same values. She said: “Homo (Sapien) is a very overtly queer piece. It’s about growing up gay in Catholic Ireland. So that one definitely fits in. And Jumper Bumps is about a woman’s right to choose in coercive relationships, and the challenging political climate we live in at the moment. So that feels really strongly feminist in theme.
“But then you have shows like r/Conspiracy, which on the surface is potentially not fulfilling either of those, but kind of does both of them because it’s really rare to see a woman on stage talking about Reddit and existing in those sorts of internet sleuthing spaces. So it does it in a potentially more subverted way. And Mary is definitely a feminist retelling of Mary’s story which feels really exciting and important and the music in that show is truly phenomenal. I saw it at the Fringe last year and fell in love with it. They were self-producing last year so I was delighted to come on board and we got a short run at the Traverse before Christmas which sold out. It felt right to bring it back to the festival on a bigger scale and give more audiences an opportunity to engage with the work.”
The shows
Homo (Sapien) by Conor O’Dwyer – “Joey is a Bad Gay™. He’s never had sex with a man, not even once. But tonight is the night, and he is determined to make sure he will not die a virgin. Filled with Catholic guilt, internalised homophobia and fear of the local GAA lads – Joey embarks on a hapless quest to ‘get his hole’ before it’s too late. Homo(sapien) is a joyful, queer, coming-of-age one-man show about overcoming your fears. The debut play from Conor O’Dwyer – an Irish playwright and performer based in Edinburgh.” Tickets here.
r/Conspiracy – “r/Conspiracy is a play for messy girls, hungry sleuths, and the chronically online. Alex tumbles headfirst into the rabbit hole when she spots a Reddit thread documenting a man with a machete roaming her local park. But the harder she digs, the deeper she falls… A timely reminder of the flaws of the internet, and a virtual mystery romp for 20-somethings with too much time on their hands, and the weight of the world on their shoulders, r/Conspiracy is written and performed by Ella Hällgren, and directed by Emma Ruse.” Tickets here.
Jumper Bumps – “What happens when the thing you wished for your whole life turns out to be your worst nightmare? Eris wants a baby. Atlanta doesn’t. They’re best friends with very different views of motherhood. Eris sees it as a chance to create a better version of herself. Atlanta sees it as the opposite, an end to her freedom. As similar as they are different, their friendship is stretched when Eris finds herself pregnant. The debut play by Amelia Rodger about a woman’s right to choose, coercive relationships and female friendship.” Tickets here.
Mary: A Gig Theatre Show – “Through powerful original music and spoken word, a folk-rock band retells Mary Queen of Scots’ story. The bold gig theatre show searingly questions what Mary faced at the hands of men, offering a mesmerising and riotous response. The hit show is back for 2025, following acclaimed sold-out runs at the 2024 Fringe and the Traverse Theatre in December.” Tickets here.
